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Sunday, February 5, 2012

many birds!

So when I was in London last week, there was a totally wonderful piece in the Guardian about a chase, with a picture of a man --- well, a blogger -- dressed as a chicken (who could put this down???) chasing Boris Johnson as Boris Johns-hen, because Boris the first, who seems to be the mayor of London, is accused of ducking debate. Now, upon my return to Paris, I tried to explain to the French friends with whom I was staying, the funniness of the thing. But of course, and this was at breakfast, by the time I went through the hen-chicken-duck thing, it was really not working. ALAS, because it was a delightfulness so typically Londonian.

And here in New York, many bird things. The three peacocks at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine are showing their plumage, which shows, they say, that spring is not far behind. They are all three named for familiar figures on the church staff: Jim for the dean of the cathedral, Harry, for the Very Reverend Harry H. Pritchett, Jr. a former dean, and Phil for Phillip Foote, the business manager of the Cathedral School... And they cannot eat sugar, and someone fed them Chinese noodles...they can enjoy dog biscuits, but do not enjoy each other.

And the more frequent ones: horned owls are found surprisingly in multitudes in the hollow trees of Brooklyn, feasting on all sorts of available delights. The excitement over the red-tailed hawks Pale Male, and Lola and so on, nesting and remating and all that, about which everyone comments and writes and speaks so excitedly never really died down. We New Yorkers are very excitable.